Then I will make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil, declares the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 32:14 belongs to a funeral song over Pharaoh. By this point God has fouled Egypt's streams and swept away the crowds that once trampled them. Then comes a strange picture: judgment ends in stillness, with the waters settling and the rivers sliding along like oil.
A lament, not a cheer
The chapter carries a date. One writer finds meaning in that date, and in the grief that arrives with it:
Numerical Bible NotesWe now come to the twelfth year and the twelfth month, a time that speaks of the full display of God's ways in government. But with this, when there should be only blessing, there comes instead a voice of lamentation... The creatures God has made must always be objects of interest to Him. It is an interest we hardly realise, for we confuse the clouds and darkness around Him with the One who is distinct from the cloud and from the darkness, in whom there is no darkness at all.
Why the waters needed clearing
The stillness answers something earlier in the same song. There a river monster stands for Pharaoh, and all it can do is churn up the water it lies in:
Numerical Bible NotesLike the restless monster that stands for him, he could only stir up his own waters with his feet and make his streams filthy. God, in fact, was spreading His net over him. The human instruments were only means in His hands, and by them He would drag him up out of his streams and throw him out on the open field.
What the words describe
Some translations read "make their waters deep." Commentators differ on the word. One argues for a different sense and ties it to the oil:
William KellyVerses 11-16 announce the coming conqueror who would destroy Egypt's pride as well as its crowds... The ruins lie there as witness to both — to the old splendour, and to the complete, sudden ruin that put an end to a once busy trade and even to farming that was famous all over the world. In verse 14 the word does not mean "deep," as I understand it. The waters were to sink or settle and so become clear. That fits with the rivers flowing like oil, instead of being muddy as they once were from the demands of trade. How plain Jehovah's hand is! Egypt itself would know that it was He.
The ESV reads "make their waters clear." Either way, the calm is the calm of an emptied land.
The river was the boast God touched
Egypt was proudest of its river, and least willing to trace it back to God as a gift:
Numerical Bible NotesEgypt is a little strip of country on each side of the great river that flows through it, and it owes its existence to that river alone... If the river fails even partly for a single year, the land is in distress. And so it is with the world. The unbroken flow of God's mercies keeps up a life that would otherwise be impossible. Yet though the world depends on Him like this, it does not see what it really depends on, any more than Egypt sees it... The river itself is their all, and they can even take credit for what is God's gift: "My river is mine, and I have made it."
The point of the emptying
The verse ends with God's own signature: "declares the Lord GOD." This is no accident of history. The judgment has a stated purpose — that Egypt should know whose hand it was:
Numerical Bible NotesAgain the prophecy says that the sword of the king of Babylon is to do this. Because of it the land of Egypt would be nothing but a desolation, stripped of its rich abundance, its people struck down so that they might know — if even now they would know — that it was Jehovah's hand. The prophecy closes as it began, with a lamentation.
Where Egypt's story is heading
One writer follows Egypt's waters further — from the plagues, to a drying up still to come, to something else entirely:
An Outline of Sound WordsWhen God stepped in for His people to punish Pharaoh and the Egyptians for the way they treated Israel, He did not overlook the river, the source of their wealth... In a coming day God will step in again to punish the Egyptians. Before the day of blessing comes to them, "the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up" (Isa. 19:5). In the end, Egypt and Assyria will be blessed with Israel (Isa. 19:23-25).
Summary
- Trouble. Pharaoh's whole greatness amounted to stirring up mud in his own river with his own feet.
- Touch. God aimed at the Nile because the Nile was the boast — the gift Egypt claimed as self-made.
- Trade. The water runs smooth as oil because the busy commerce that kept it churned and cloudy is gone.
- Testimony. The quiet is not peace but proof. God emptied Egypt so Egypt would know whose hand did it.
- Tomorrow. The same prophets who dry up Egypt's river end with Egypt blessed alongside Israel. Judgment is not God's last word.